The Chronicles of Albion
The Chronicles of Albion is the story of a group of people from all walks of life facing a grand destiny of scope unimaginable. It follows the journeys of Amaranth li Astellia and Augustus Hadrian Invictus, as well as their numerous companions and comrades, as they travel the land, fight dangerous foes, and discover new horizons. = Plague Dragon Arc = Prologue Amaranth li Astellia, crown princess of Astellia and famous idol singer, seeks to flee her country to get away from what she perceives as a stagnant prison. Bribing a member of the Astellian Self-Defense Force, she hitches a ride on one of their aircrafts, but due to a brewing conspiracy that reaches into unseen corners of society, Amaranth is betrayed and cast from the aircraft to the surface of the planet Albion below, presumed dead. However, she washes up alive on the shores of the Julian Republic and is found by the slave of a young soldier named Augustus Hadrian Invictus. Augustus nurses Amaranth back to health, and, when he reveals that he is to travel to Egalstria to assist in the slaying of a calamitous beast known as the Plague Dragon, Amaranth decides to accompany him. Joined by Alystra, a scout in Augustus' employ, and Avius, a wanderer from the island nation of Bruoka, Amaranth and Augustus depart the Julian capital city and head east. Rema Arriving at the border town of Rema, the group decides to take a rest and plan their next course of action. During this time, Amaranth pulls Augustus aside, and, sick of his religion—which views Astellia as a heavenly paradise—preventing him from believing the truth about Astellia, she uses her multi-functional Astellian bracelet to show him images of the continent and kingdom, explaining to him the full history of Astellia. This shatters Augustus' worldview and causes him to experience a crisis of faith—a crisis he resolves by going to a church and confessing his dilemma. He reconciles his faith, renews his determination, and returns to the group after ordering a new cloak to commemorate the occasion. Shortly thereafter, Amaranth confronts Alystra about her burgeoning feelings for Augustus, only to find out that Alystra feels the same way, and they put aside their differences so as to wait until the time is right to lay their feelings bare to Augustus. Later, wishing to try a sip of Avius' alcohol for herself, Amaranth succumbs to a nasty cold due to continued exposure to this new land, and the group calls on a doctor to provide medicine to heal her. Avius, in possession of healing magic, aids in repairing Amaranth's damaged immune system. During this time, the group is joined by a mercenary named Igni and his companion, Byrne, who journeyed here from Egalstria. However, a spat between Amaranth and Avius, brought on by Avius' disagreeable personality, leads to Amaranth putting Avius on death's door with a kick, made substantially easier by Avius' healing magic powering itself on his own soul. A defense system, unknown to Avius himself, activates, revealing Avius to be possessed by an earth elemental spirit called a gnome, so the group sees a local spiritualist for some stopgap measures to prevent Avius' condition from worsening. After Amaranth, now fully healed, obtains a set of traveling clothes for herself, the group, now six strong, departs Rema, entering Egalstria proper. Separation Spending the night in a cave, the group is startled by the arrival of a rather sizable group of bandits. They prepare themselves for combat, with Byrne displaying an arcane gift for pyromancy in the process, but before they can engage the bandits properly, chaos erupts from within the bandit army. A lone individual, a mysterious boy from Magnolion with seemingly unlimited strength, trashes the bandits thoroughly and engages the leader. At the same time, a group of Holy Paladins (Sir Lothar, Sir Uther, and Sir Arthas) from the Egalstrian Church take the stage, having been in pursuit of the bandits. Amidst the chaos, the group splits into two, with one half—Augustus, Byrne, and Avius—staying behind to assist in fighting the bandits, while the other half—Amaranth, Igni, and Alystra—flees the cave, making their way to their next destination. After escaping the cave, Amaranth's group happens upon Ichihime, who owns a manor somewhat nearby and is in search of volunteers for the army that will fight the Plague Dragon. They spend the night at the manor and departed in the morning. Pietravalle The next day, the two groups arrive separately at Pietravalle, the capitol city of Egalstria. Taking some time to unwind, Augustus meets a boy named Hana, who seemingly has lost all his memories. The two take to each other rather well—although this is mostly one-sided on Hana's part—and Augustus meets with the paladin known as Arthas to discuss the situation with the King of Egalstria. Upon reuniting with Amaranth, Augustus makes known his bigotry against the Magnolionese, much to the chagrin of Amaranth (and Ichihime, who is Magnolionese). After their spat, however, Amaranth meets the amnesiac Hana, who is revealed to be her little brother, hailing from Astellia like her. Putting two and two together, Amaranth realizes that he must have met the same fate as her, which can only point to the existence of a plot against the lives of the royal family. With renewed determination, Amaranth attends a royal audience the next day with the rest of her group, where the king asks the gathered fighters if they have any wish they would like granted should they succeed in slaying the Plague Dragon. Augustus seeks only the glory of having slain the Dragon, whereas Amaranth desires the means to seek a way back home. Additionally, the group meets two new faces—Klaus, an Egalstrian knight and the only individual with the means to permanently end the Dragon, and Alexander, a Julian general and Augustus' direct superior, who, like Augustus, seeks only glory, conquest, and power. After taking some time to prepare themselves, the group sets out from Pietravalle and heads further east, towards the location where the Plague Dragon was last seen... Trials However, it does not take long before things come to a head between Amaranth and Augustus. Confronting him about his bigotry, Amaranth forces Augustus to realize his faults as a person, and he storms off into the woods alone (accompanied unbeknownst to him by Alystra), casting aside the name Augustus and taking on the name of Clemens in a quest for atonement. He meets up with a young boy named Hope and a cat-like young man named Yuuta, and, upon meeting a ghostly little girl named Iam, Augustus is forced to undergo a series of trials. The first of these trials is a series of visions into the past, present, and future of events concerning Augustus, culminating in a tragic glimpse into the events that played out over the final week a young Augustus spent with Aeliana, his girlfriend (and later wife), before the two were tragically separated by the cruel destiny imposed upon Aeliana. The second trial was a bizarre glimpse inward, as Augustus was forced to confront his burgeoning feelings for both Amaranth and Alystra, as well as the possibility of their feelings for him. Finally, Hope led Augustus and Yuuta to a spring deep in the woods, where it was said that one might be able to confront that which weighs heaviest on their heart. Augustus ends up engaged in combat with a shadowy copy of Amaranth, coming to terms with both his and her issues after a heated battle. Hope and Yuuta, on the other hand, must confront the memories of their deceased lovers, learning to move on and discovering that the two of them have more in common than they initially thought. Following this, the two find love in each other, while Augustus, having gained newfound power from the spring, seeks to find and slay a monster that is rumored to reside somewhere in these woods, as a final trial to test his strength. Meanwhile, however, Alystra has ventured off and come face-to-face with a young girl named Ono, who turns out to be a manakete, one of a race of humanoid beings who can transform into dragons. The two of them get to know each other, and when Ono takes Alystra on a ride out of the woods, they are shot down by Augustus in a display of his new power. Thinking that Ono is the rumored monster, he seeks to finish her off, but Alystra defends her, seeking to clear up this misunderstanding. After Ono is healed by Hope's newly-obtained healing magic, Ono takes Augustus and Alystra astride her back and ferries them in the direction of the Plague Dragon. Lycoris The night of Augustus' departure, Amaranth is suddenly greeted by the unexpected arrival of a young girl named Lycoris, who appears suddenly from the woods. The mysterious child grows attached to Amaranth, and she elects to take her along with the group. However, no sooner does the next day dawn than Amaranth's group is assaulted by bandits—a three-man bandit group led by a woman named Luna, the bloodiest and most brutal bandit in Egalstrian history. Having matured, Amaranth takes it upon herself to face down Luna in order to end her life of banditry. After a heated battle, during which Amaranth ends up cutting her hair to escape Luna's grasp, Luna reveals herself to be a manakete as well, transforming into a massive crystalline dragon to face down the entire group, before she has a change of heart and decides to accompany them, along with her two companions, in light of being so thoroughly matched—in her eyes—by Amaranth. The Plague Dragon Arriving in a small town deep in Egalstria, Amaranth's group takes the opportunity to relax in preparation for the journey ahead... but a strange pall hangs over the town, with countless refugees being brought in from deeper in the Plaguelands, as the territory desolated by the Plague Dragon is known. With a storm brewing, the town is shocked by the sudden arrival of the Plague Dragon itself, which has followed the refugees. Amaranth immediately goes into shock at the sight of the dragon, and after Augustus and Alystra arrive on the back of Ono, it is here that Amaranth experiences an... awakening. Being born with an atavistic genetic code identical to that of Calystegia, the first queen of Astellia, she plays host to Calystegia's memories through an unclear process. And when Amaranth's mind goes into shock, Calystegia's memories come to the fore and take control of Amaranth, beginning a sort of defragmentation process to fully restore Calystegia's mind and personality in the body of Amaranth. However, due to the incompleteness of Calystegia's memories, her personality is severely flawed, and Calystegia goes berserk upon attempting and failing to reunite with her brother Silva, a series of events which drives the Plague Dragon away in fear. However, Klaus, guided by Lycoris and seeking to conquer his destiny, faces down Calystegia in an attempt to bring Amaranth back. He succeeds at this, and Amaranth regains control over half her body and rebels against Calystegia's control. However, after severing Amaranth's arm, an enraged Calystegia seeks to utterly destroy Klaus, but she is stopped by the sudden awakening of Silva, Astellia's first king, within Hana. Through the power of song, Silva forcibly separates Calystegia from Amaranth, after which Amaranth uses an inverse of Calystegia's own magic to negate Calystegia's existence, erasing her from this plane of existence entirely. With the immediate danger passed, Augustus and Klaus board Ono and depart for the town of Bautze, to which the Plague Dragon had fled. Meanwhile, in Bautze, Igni and Byrne began a romance. However, it was quickly interrupted when the Plague Dragon attacked the town, with Igni, Byrne, Ichihime, Arthas, and Avius, along with some locals named Aaron, Wendy, and Myles, being the town's only protectors. Tragedy, and Thereafter An epic battle ensued, with the dragon using its poisonous miasma to its advantages. However, due to the interference of individuals such as Luna, Augustus, and Alystra, the dragon was beaten down and near-defeat, albeit at the cost of Alystra's life. The time came for Klaus to fulfill his destiny, to take up the Omnilanze and end the Plague Dragon forever. However, gripped by fear, Klaus took up Igni's sword and struck the dragon's heart, slaying the dragon but only for a time, until its next rebirth. This enraged Augustus, who blamed Klaus' timidity for not only Alystra's death, but the suffering of generations to come. Later, however, Amaranth, Ono, and Hana arrived. Hana, empowered by the spirit of King Silva, sacrificed his own life to permanently destroy the Plague Dragon. Funeral plans were made for the next day, with the help of the surviving villagers, who were grateful for the sacrifice of the noble Saint Hana. That night, however, there was one spark of light in an otherwise sad day. Augustus, having finally let go of the baggage of his past, was able to bring himself to love once more. Confessing his feelings to Amaranth, she responded in kind, and the two finally found love in each other. A day later, the mayor of Bautze held a festival in the heroes' honor. Soon after, they packed up their bags and left the town. On their journey back to Julia, they added two travelers, a warrior named Nylek and a historian named Kusumi (the Magnolio-Julian daughter of a Julian aristocrat) to their party, and even fought a powerful warlock. That said, after much travelling, they reached Julia at long last. Back in Julia After returning to Julia, Augustus was given a hero's welcome home by the Senate, and was offered a triumph. He refused, instead asking for a state-sponsored funeral for his fallen comrade, Alystra. However, the day before the funeral, Augustus met with his old friends Aetius and Atilius. Aetius, having become a full-fledged priest, had a bit of news for Augustus—that his late wife, Aeliana, had been sent to a convent on the morning of their separation. Nine months later, she had a child, unfortunately dying in childbirth. Armed with this knowledge, Augustus and Aetius rode to the convent, where Augustus first laid eyes on his daughter—Auriel. Sharing stories of Aeliana and spending a night together, the two of them, plus Aetius, returned to Julia on the morning of the funeral. After the funeral, Augustus went to the Pontifex Maximus to petition for sainthood for Hana. The Pontifex accepted, and Hana became known thereafter as Saint Flosculus. Additionally, Augustus pleaded with the Pontifex to begin an effort to mend the Great Schism between the Macarian and Merodian Churches, based on the existence and supposed last wish of Hana himself. The Pontifex agreed, and the two faiths went on to become one. = Astellia Arc = Amaranth's Departure The day after the funeral, Amaranth and Augustus parted ways, with Amaranth, Lycoris, Igni, Diana (Luna, under an alias), Avius, Vrael, and Ono departing Julia to make for Pietravalle. There, Amaranth obtained the ship she had been promised by King Heinrich in return for the Plague Dragon's defeat, and with it, the group of seven sailed to Lemuria. There, in search of the Lemurian Archsage, Amaranth's group came upon a forest manor that housed the newly-awoken Lostelle, daughter to the Archsage. Lostelle informed Amaranth's group of the existence of a "big, round place" far, far out to sea. Vrael confirmed to the group that this was where Astellia was once located, before it left the planet's surface. Using an ancient magic circle deeper in the forest, Amaranth, Avius, and Diana transported themselves to Old Astellia. Once there, Amaranth was immediately lauded and revered as the second coming of Calystegia, who was said to be the one to one day lead the Old Astellians to their rightful home in the sky. Rallying the entire population of Old Astellia along the way, the group made for the city of Silverport in the north, where a fragment of Astellia's magical reactor was said to rest. Amaranth succeeded in using her divine magic to activate the fragment, generating a portal home. The First Helvetic War Around the time of Amaranth's arrival in Lemuria, trouble was brewing back in Aurelia. A group of tribes, known as the Raetic Confederation, launched a surprise raid on the territories of the Julian Republic, sacking the city of Trevorum, razing it to the ground. There were many victims, two of which being Augustus' parents. Enraged, Augustus asked the Senate for command of a great army, by which to exact vengeance for Trevorum. His request was granted, and he was made Dux, or leader, of the legions. Augustus, along with two other commanders named Flavius Augustus Stilicho and Vettius Argorius Praetextatus set out west with 30,000 men. The first major battle of the war was the Battle of Gallo, in which Julian forces defeated those of Chieftain Erik, capturing the city. Praetextatus was left to hold the town, while Invictus and Stilicho led the majority of their army further south. As they trekked along the coast, they came across the armies of the chieftain's daughter, Emma. Augustus baited Emma into a duel with one of his own soldiers, the secretly-Astellian Taka. Taka was taken by surprise by the young girl, who nearly killed him. Augustus, with Taka defeated, had to fight the battle himself, subduing her. Emma was taken prisoner, and her whole army surrendered. Meanwhile, back in the north, Chieftain Erik drew out Praetextatus and his men into a trap. In what was known as the Praetextatan Disaster, the forces of the Republic were slaughtered by the might of the Raetic geomancers, leaving thousands dead and thousands fleeing back towards Gallo. Even Praetextatus himself was slain. When news reached Augustus in the now-occupied town of Attilar, he was furious. He lamented the death of his men, and swore vengeance once more. Augustus then marched his armies further north, to face down Erik, once and for all. Under the cover of fog, Augustus surprise attacked Erik's forces. It was a slaughter, a cavalry charge by the Julian Cataphracts destroying the geomancers that killed Praetextatus. Meanwhile, Augustus and Erik had a duel, away from the chaos of the battle. They faced eachother in mortal combat, and in the ensuing battle, Augustus barely triumphed, killing Erik right before he himself would have been slain. With the Raetic forces annihilated and the Republic victorious, the confederation capitulated. The Province of Raetia was born, with Augustus serving as military governor. Emma, the dead chieftain's daughter, was made a slave, and given to the young soldier Caecilius, whom she had befriended. For his conquest, the first in many generations, Augustus was given a triumph on November 23rd, 867. Home at Last Arriving home, Amaranth was greeted with great fervor by a man named Finis Solomon, who claimed to have been aiding the royal family since Amaranth's disappearance. He invited her and her companions, Avius and Diana, to a celebratory feast that evening—but the whole affair was a trap. In Amaranth's absence, Finis had orchestrated a takeover of the entire kingdom; the feast was a ploy to capture Amaranth and lock her away until such time as his as-of-yet-unexplained goal could be realized. She resisted, but she was bested by Finis after a battle with Finis' synth android servant, Lessica, and taken away to be imprisoned. Meanwhile, Avius and Diana managed to escape with the help of a few members of the resistance force that had been formed to oppose Finis, after a heated battle with the Malik Squadron, an elite five-man special forces unit under Finis' command. Although Avius, Diana, and the Resistance fighters managed to escape to their hideout, their location was shortly found out, and the Malik Squadron invaded the base, massacring all but three members of the Resistance cell in the process. Attack on Asterion After two months, Resistance intelligence networks managed to discover the existence of a contingency plan to be enacted should Amaranth's location be discovered, involving the transfer of the Princess to a new location. Armed with this information, Commander August Katsuragi of the Resistance organized a plan to draw out Asterion forces and trick them into enacting the contingency plan, intercepting the transfer of Amaranth in the process. Storming Asterion HQ from the back entrance, Balrog, Muza, Wechi, David, and Nagato successfully made their way to R&D with a surprising lack of resistance, obtaining new weapons for the group before blasting a hole straight through to the underground hangar. There, they discovered Nagato's personal mech, the majestic Izanagi, which Nagato entered, powering it on while his companions moved to open the hangar doors so that the group could leave. However, the Asterion "Faced" mecha known as Metal Visage arrived on the scene along with Malik himself. Metal Visage engaged Nagato in battle, eventually defeating and killing the young pilot. Malik used his magic to body change into Muza's body, but his deception was found out, and he and Metal Visage engaged Balrog in combat after the latter broke his limiters and awoke to his power as a nearly invincible psion. Before Balrog could finish the two off, however, a comment from Malik about the whole mission being a trap prompted Balrog to leave the hangar and travel upwards, towards where the infiltration team was waiting to enact phase two of the plan. The team had been intercepted by the rest of the Malik Squadron, but Balrog's arrival turned the tides decisively, with the Squadron being utterly thrashed and Doug L. meeting his end. All seemed well for Balrog and the Resistance... ...until the sudden arrival of Finis himself spelled the end. Balrog did everything he could to facilitate the rest of the team to escape, but he was annihilated by Finis in two strokes of his blade. The infiltration team had survived... but Amaranth's location lay yet unknown... The Cavalry Arrives ...to all but one person. A mysterious agent named Natalya had found out the location where Amaranth was being held—her own bedroom in the palace—and snuck her way in to free her, whereupon it was revealed that Natalya was none other than Alystra, who was very much not dead. Together, the two women fled the palace and sought out General Felicia, at which point the three of them fled to the edge of the continent and jumped off, flying by way of Felicia's gravity magic to Julia. There, Amaranth reunited with Augustus—and Felicia with Taka—and after reuniting the whole gang from the Plague Dragon quest, they returned to Astellia. Once there, after fighting their way out of the palace's basement, the group made their way to the Resistance's secret base, meeting up with Diana and Avius, as well as General August Katsuragi, the former general of the ASDF and Felicia's predecessor. After Amaranth instated Augustus as the commander of the Resistance, he spent two weeks learning everything he could about Astellia, its weaponry, and its technology, before having the base moved out of the capital to a city on the mainland. Soon, the Resistance's first offensive operation against Asterion began. A team consisting of Augustus, Felicia, Avius, Igni, Taka, an espionage specialist named Pliskin, and a heavy weapons specialist named Zack made a move on a mountain communications center under Asterion's control. They successfully fought their way to the base's data room where Taka hacked up data on key Asterion strategic holdings, but they were intercepted by a nanomachine-based murderbot named Lilium. After a heated struggle, they fought their way out, whereupon Igni used his newfound fire mastery to annihilate Lilium along with a large part of the building before the group returned to base. Later, using the data gleaned from the earlier mission, Augustus formulated a subsequent mission plan, this time to attack a hidden Asterion research facility run by Asterion's Director of R&D, Callias Krestin. The plan involved Felicia warping Pliskin into the security room, where he would disable the guards along with the facility's security.